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S P E E C H 






mr. Bobbins. 

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I HON REPORTED BY THE LIBRARY OMMITTEE, 



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COPYRIGHT OF MADISON'S MANUSCRIPT WORKS, 



•!) ESCRIBED J N S A J D HESOL U T I O N" 



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NATE OF THE UNITED STATE! FE8R1 IR1 18, 183' 






\\ ASHI N G TON: 

PRINTED BI GALES AND SEATON. 

.1 337. 



SPEECH 



I consider this work of Mr. Madison, now proposed 
to be given to the world under the patronage of this 
Government, as the most valuable one to mankind that 
has appeared since the days when Bacon gave to the 
world his Novum Organon. That produced that revo- 
lution in analytics, which has produced the immense su- 
periority of the moderns over the ancients in the knowl- 
edge of Nature, and in the improvement of the condition 
of human life — the fruit of that knowledge. With Ba- 
con it was a mere theory; a theory, however, which he 
fondly cherished, and confidently believed would be pro- 
lific, as it has been, of the most magnificent results; but 
in the hands of Newton, and of his other disciples and 
followers, it became a practical guide to those aston- 
ishing discoveries which, in their consequences, have, 
among other things, converted those elements of Nature 
before supposed to be, only to be controlled by the same 
Almighty hand which formed them, into the ministers 
and agents of man, obedient to his will, and subservient 
to his use. It has enabled man to draw the veil from 
the face of Nature; to inspect her mechanism; and to 
avail himself of her principles for the augmentation of 
his own power. It has given him power after power; 
and is still going on to give him power upon power, as 
his researches go on in exploring her boundless fields, 
and in making discovery upon discovery; and to thij 
growing increase of human power, no human being a 
now assign the possible limits. True, it has not enabl< 
man, as it was fabled of him by the poets of old, to stefl 
the fire from the heavens; but it has enabled him to do 



4 

more and better— it has enabled him to become an hum- 
ble pupil in the schcol of the Divine Artist; and, by stu- 
dying his models, to copy his agencies, though at the 
immeasureable distance which separates a finite from 
the Infinite Being. 

As this Organon of Bacon has been the beacon-light 
to mankind to guide him to the true philosophy, and to 
the improvement of his physical condition, so will this 
work of Madison, as I trust and predict, be his beacon- 
light to guide him to the true science of free govern- 
ment, and to the improvement of his political condition. 
The science of free government; the most difficult of ajl 
the sciences, by far the most difficult, while it is the most 
important, to mankind; of all the slowest in growth, the 
latest in maturity. Not the science which has pene- 
trated the causes and explained to mankind the phenom- 
ena of the heavens is so difficult; that has been found 
of easier and more rapid attainment. Indeed, the diffi- 
culties to be overcome in evolving this science are so 
great, that we are to wonder less at its tardy advances, 
than at its final success. In the first place, it requires 
the deepest and most perfect insight into the nature of 
man: of man not only in his general nature, but as mod- 
ified by society; which every where has superinduced 
and clothed him with a second nature denominated 
habit; and that as diversified as the countries he inhabits. 
Then it requires that faculty of comprehensive combina- 
tion, which is the rarest of all the gifts of God to man, 
and which, whenever and wherever it appears, seems 
destined to produce an era in human affairs; a faculty of 
combining into a whole, where the elements to be com- 
bined are so various as to be almost infinite; a whole 
perfect in relation to all its parts, and its parts perfect in 
relation to the whole. Besides, the perfect model of 
the free Government is not like the perfect model of any 
other science. Of every other science, the perfect model 
any where is the perfect model every where, and every 
where alike perfect. The perfect watch at Washington, 
for instance, is the perfect watch at Canton, and so all over 
the globe; but not so the perfect model of the free Gov 



ernment: that, though the principles are the same every 
where, the form varies as the circumstances vary, of the 
people by whom it is established; to which circumstances 
it must always be adjusted and made to conform. 

Here, with us, the difficulties to be overcome in this 
achievement, from the nature of the elements to be com- 
bined, were stupendously great. In looking back to 
those difficulties, that they were overcome at all, appears 
to me now little less than a prodigy; and it still fills me 
with astonishment. For here a combination was re- 
quired that would produce a structure, perfectly anoma- 
lous in the history of human Governments; and such a 
structure was produced, and as perfect as it was novel. 
Here were a people, spread and spreading over a vast 
territory — that stretching and to stretch almost from the 
rising to the setting sun — this scattered and countless 
multitude were to be ruled in freedom as one people, 
and by the popular will — that will to be uncontrolled in 
itself, and controlling every thing. Such an achieve- 
ment, the most enlightened friends of freedom and hu- 
man rights, in all countries, and in all ages, had deemed 
to be morally and physically impossible. Besides, here 
were thirteen States, and all the other States to be 
formed out of that vast territory, without being destroyed 
as States, to be so combined as to form, in the general 
aspect, but one simple Government; with all the unity 
and energy of one simple Government; powerful alike 
to assert and maintain all their rights as a nation, against 
all other nations; and the rights of eveiy individual, all 
over this boundless domain, against every aggressor; 
that is, a Government equally fitted and efficient for all 
the purposes of peace and war. Such an achievement, 
often before, and under much more .favorable circum- 
stances, because upon a much more limited scale, had 
been attempted, but never before accomplished; as is 
but too well attested by the histories and the destinies of/ 
all the confederacies that before had ever existed on the 
earth. 

Those confederacies had all proved signal failures as 
effective Governments, both in war and peace; and en 



6 

tirely for the want of that form of structure and princi- 
ple of combination that would reconcile absolute sov- 
ereignty in the nation with sovereignty in the States, as 
parts of one nation — as consistent and harmonious parts 
of one supreme sovereignty. This principle, unexplored 
and unknown before, was developed and displayed, most 
happily so, in the structure of our confederate and na- 
tional Republic. 

This work now proposed to be published will unfold 
to us all the steps of that diversified analysis and dis- 
covery which lead to this ha^py and splendid result. 

Those who think (if any think) that the result itself— 
namely, the Constitution— of itself and by itself, will be 
enough for the instruction of mankind on this subject, are 
much mistaken. For there is a vast difference between 
the knowledge which is acquired analytically, and that 
which is acquired synthetically; the latter is out isolated 
knowledge; the former is knowledge that is the conse- 
quence of other knowledge. Synthesis gives to us a 
general truth, but acquired in a mode that is barren of 
other fruit; analysis not only gives to us the same gen- 
eral truth, but puts us on the track of invention and dis- 
covery, and is always fertile of other, and often of better 
fruit: synthesis carries us to a fountain head, but never 
beyond; but analysis carries us beyond, and to the foun- 
tain of that fountain; it places us upon an eminence that 
overtops and overlooks the general truth in the wide sur- 
vey it commands and gives to us; and as to that general 
truth, it enables us not only to comprehend it more per- 
fectly, but to apply it more successfully. This is at once 
a branch and the great instrument of that primal philoso- 
phy of which Bacon speaks, and whose cultivation he so 
highly recommends — the philosophy of philosophy; the 
common mother of all the sciences, and by which alone 
their boundaries can be extended. He compares it to 
the Berecynthia, whom the poets of old fabled to be the 
mother of all the gods: 

" Omnes Ccelicolas, omnes supera alta 
Tenentcs." 

Of such is the nature, and such will be the fruits to 



mankind, of the work now proposed lo be given to the 
world. 

Further to awaken Our sensibility on this subject, 1 
need not remind the Senate how much we owe to a name 
that is to render the name of this country respectable in 
every other on this globe; the darumct vcncrabilc nomen. 
Nations have lived upon the earth who have become ex- 
tinct, and been lost to the memory of mankind; but never 
when the da rum ct vcncrabilc nomen had illustrated their 
annals. The clarum ct vcncrabilc nomen is the true 
elixir of national immortality. What has this country! 
what can she ever have, that would be an equivalent to her 
in exchange for the name of her Washington! that star 
of stars in the diadems that sparkle on the brow of na- 
tions? Not the diadem that sparkles on the brow of 
Greece; not the diadem that sparkles on the brow of 
Rome, has one of equal brilliancy. No: it stands peerless 
on the earth, and alone in glory. Though it can never 
be a contest whose name is to do the most honor to our 
country, and, more than all others, to carry her name as- 
sociated with his, and emblazoned by his, down through 
all the endless generations of mankind to follow, for all 
the endless ages of time to come, yet among the names to 
cluster around his, and to form the constellation (may it 
multiply to a galaxy) of American worthies, not one will 
ever shine with a purer, with a brighter, or more inex- 
tinguishable lustre than that of Madison. 

If, then, this appropriation was merely to express a 
nation's gratitude to a nation's benefactor, it would be the 
least it would become her to make. But, besides that, 
we are to consider that it is to purchase for this country, 
and for mankind, a treasure of instruction, whose value 
no money can measure, no figures can express. 



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